Outer Wilds

Right, as you might have guessed today Boys and Girls, I’m going to give a brief review for a currently free Indie Game called Outer Wilds, there will be spoilers below, so if you don’t want to know too much of the game already do not read this.
But first, sit yourself down and watch the trailer:

So, with outer Wilds, we have a space exploration game that pits you against a relatively small solar system and a sun that goes nova in about twenty minutes.
It may not sound like a great premise, I know I didn’t love the idea of having just twenty minutes to explore but the bluesy feel to the trailer tempted me into giving the game a chance and I’m glad I did.
My apprehension about the time limit was primarily due to my experience with other space simulators where it could take ten minutes just to get from planet to planet but in Outer Wilds planetary travel is much quicker, the solar system is on a smaller scale with planets being large enough to walk around in a couple of minutes.

So twenty minutes is plenty of time to start exploring, though to be honest you may only want to take one or two planets per flight.
From the surface, you’ll think that each planet is pretty basic, but everything has something to explore, even your home planet has one or two secrets if you’re willing to look for them and you really should, though it is given as a game of exploration for the sake of exploration, there is a history hidden in the game if you are willing to search.

Planet-wise, you won’t find anything hyper realistic, it’s more akin to the Lucas train of thought where a planet contains a single biome, but in this instance the effect allows for quicker exploration, you have twin sand planets in a symbiotic orbit, an ocean planet, a planet that’s falling apart and a mass of brambles shrouded in mist.
On top of that, there’s moons, comments and the quantum moon, each hiding some part of a larger secret.

In the end you’ll find that exploration for the sake of exploration does bring down your gameplay to a couple of hours before you want to do something a little more objective oriented, but there is one thing that gives me hope for the future of Outer Wilds.
When the sun goes nova, or you fall foul to the deaths that await the unwary, instead of a game over screen you see your life working in reverse from the moment of your death right back to the moment when you started the game, as if you’re in some sort of time loop and you alone remember it.
Do you alone have the power to stop the sun from going nova? Is the alien technology littered across the system the key to saving everyone?
Till the game updates, we’ll just have to wait and see, but for now Outer Wilds is certainly one to watch.